Out of Switzerland, a stop-motion delight. By DARREN BEVAN.

ANIMATION these days is sometimes overlooked if it doesn’t offer the smart, slick feel of the majority of output from the Pixar fold. Max & Co is a simple tale, aimed squarely at children, and is solid musical fun from beginning to end. It’s the tale of Max, a stop-motion animated fox (voiced by Lorent Deutsch) who sets out to find his father, a famous troubador by the name of Jonny Bigoude (bad pun) and winds up in Saint Hilare, a town which is renowned for creating and manufacturing fly swatters. However, Bzzz & Co (run by the frog playboy industrialist Rodolfo) is losing money hand over fly swatter, and despite the chairman’s pleas to liquidate it, an audit takes place. A manic wheelbound scientist by the name of Martin has other ideas on how to turn it around and put the profit back into it. As ever, his diabolical and fiendish scheming only spells trouble for the town, and Max and his new band of friends (including a sizzling turn by Virginie Efira as the cat cabaret crooner, who rivals Jessica Rabbit for sexiness) set out to save the day. Max & Co won’t win awards for its unoriginal storyline, but it has won audience accolades in Belgium for its enthusiastic and infectious humour, music, as well as the inventive quality of its animation. In fact, in a very short time, you come to care about all the animal characters – the majority of whom have been laid off – which is truly a coup d’etat from these relatively new filmmakers. Directors Frederic and Samuel Guillaume (who’ve previously only released an eight minute short) have really brought this fable of greed and identity alive with the puppetry of all the main characters – there is a Gothic feel to this and at times, it truly is stunning to watch – while the details of the background are intricate and beautifully capture the raison d’etre of so many French towns and villages.